New York:
Carbon monoxide, a deadly toxin, could be beneficial in treating various infections and organ transplantation if used in small, extremely controlled doses, a recent research has revealed.
According to Dr Patty J Lee, an associate professor of internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine, a new research has shown that carbon monoxide, often called a silent killer, has benefits in everything from infections to organ transplantation and could also be a medical treatment.
"Carbon monoxide essentially suffocates the red blood cells - that's the way we learned it in school," said Dr Lee.
He added "scientific opinion of the idea has gone from completely skeptical to moderately skeptical.... Therapeutically, I think it has incredibly great potential".
It seems like a radical contradiction, but animal studies show that in small, extremely controlled doses the gas has benefits in everything from infections to organ transplantation, an article published in The Boston Globe said.
The research is now experimented on people, who are given the gas at very low concentrations, while many doctors remain skeptical, the National Institutes of Health recently gave the idea a vote of confidence: The federal agency awarded a USD1.4 million grant to a researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to study the underlying biology of how the gas works, it said.
According to Dr Patty J Lee, an associate professor of internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine, a new research has shown that carbon monoxide, often called a silent killer, has benefits in everything from infections to organ transplantation and could also be a medical treatment.
"Carbon monoxide essentially suffocates the red blood cells - that's the way we learned it in school," said Dr Lee.
He added "scientific opinion of the idea has gone from completely skeptical to moderately skeptical.... Therapeutically, I think it has incredibly great potential".
It seems like a radical contradiction, but animal studies show that in small, extremely controlled doses the gas has benefits in everything from infections to organ transplantation, an article published in The Boston Globe said.
The research is now experimented on people, who are given the gas at very low concentrations, while many doctors remain skeptical, the National Institutes of Health recently gave the idea a vote of confidence: The federal agency awarded a USD1.4 million grant to a researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to study the underlying biology of how the gas works, it said.
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